The use of stents to maintain fluid flow in body passages is well known. In addition, it is known to use stents to maintain urine flow through the prostatic urethra. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,955,859, a prostatic stent is disclosed which includes means for frictionally engaging the urethra walls to prevent the device from migrating back into the bladder or down into the urethra.
It would be advantageous to have a stent that could both provide and maintain flow through a body passage, such as the urethra, which had a more reliable means than just frictional contact to prevent migration of the stent from the body passage.